This is Why Laverne Cox Shouted Out Gavin Grimm at the 2017 Grammys

When Laverne Cox took the stage at the Grammys, she made an announcement of her own before introducing the upcoming performers. Instead of putting all the attention on Lady Gaga and Metallica, who were about to take the stage, Laverne took a second to shine the spotlight on Gavin Grimm, a teenager who is making history.

Gavin is a transgender male from Virginia whose lawsuit against his school is headed to the Supreme Court. The reason that's significant is Gavin is suing is school for the right to use the boys' bathroom, marking the first time the Supreme Court will hear a case on transgender rights. In an interview with CBS This Morning, Laverne explained that she shouted out Gavin because his case isn't just about bathrooms. It's much more than that.

“What people should know about these bathroom bills that criminalize trans people — like criminalize me using the women’s room — is that these are not about bathrooms; they’re about whether trans people have the right to exist in public space,” Laverne said. “If we can’t access public bathrooms, we can’t go to school, we can’t work, we can’t go to health care facilities. This is about public accommodations and… public accommodations are always key to civil rights.”

With a bathroom restriction on the books in North Carolina, and one that could come to fruition in Texas, it's more important than ever that we recognize this. While it is about where transgender people can and cannot pee, it's also a much bigger issue than bathrooms. Gavin taking his lawsuit all the way to the Supreme Court highlights that.

"[Transgender people] are not perverse," Gavin wrote in an op-ed for the Washington Post. "We are not broken. We are not sick. We are not freaks. We cannot change who we are. Our gender identities are as innate as anyone else’s."